June 13, 2004
Right Way Right Time
Part of the open-source method is to try and maximize the ways to build the better mousetrap. And I think this competitive spirit is alive among the Mozilla development groups. Via the Mozillazine Forums I learnt about, and downloaded, new Windows builds of Mozilla, Firefox (standalone browser component) and Thunderbird (standalone mail component). Each of which is available in versions optimized for processors ranging from AMD 64-bit to P4s, P3s and older down to Pentium MMX. The supercharged versions are built with either the open-source Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit. Or using VisualStudio.Net 2003. And do they rock.
To begin with the regular releases have been compiled with Cygwin and have a history of Windows resource abuse. Typically on load these maximize the CPU cycles to 98-100% and often crash altogether on certain Windows 2000 configurations that included all the security updates released by Microsoft (as they did frequently with my old P3).
Mozillazine Forums are alive with multiple developers. With builds updated daily from source released by Mozilla.org. My favorite for enhanced Firefox 0.8+ and Thunderbird 0.6+ releases is Moox. But there multiple development versions available. All listed under the Third Party/Unofficial Builds. This also contains enhanced versions for Linux/FreeBSD/OS X.
Of course you could also direct download the latest releases from Mozilla. But I did grab a copy of Firefox 0.9 to find it so unstable it barely managed to start. And then before I could even browse a single site, the app crashed! Luckily the Thunderbird team manage to release quite stable versions; including v 0.7 that out just now.
And if you use the latest Mozilla-Firebird-Thunderbird triumvirate, you might be interested in the Mozilla Optimizer. This freeware tweaks connection sets and considerably speeds up both render engine speeds as well as improves page and message download times. Of course, these tweaks can also be completed manually, but you need to individually edit configuration files. Me, I just use a Wizard if there's one available.
As a matter of interest the new Firefox builds also import your IE history and bookmarks. If the list is really long, like mine, the app may crash. With your only warning being a frozen blank dialog box! I also find that if MyIE2 is installed, its URL completion shortcuts work with Firefox (but sadly IE remains immune to such enhancements).
Last week I had a knotty problem to resolve -- how to archive offline an entire years' worth of Blogger posts from a web log I'm planning to kill. After reading all relevant Help files on the subject at Blogger, I finally admitted defeat and emailed Blogger Support. Blogger's a great service, but their tech support sucks. Perhaps they should outsource it to India!
While awaiting their response, I decided to search through Google Groups (which indexes Usenet and news servers) for a solution. And found a really simple one to export Blogger posts to Moveable Type and Wordpress. All you do in Blogger is change the publishing settings so that you publish 999 (maximum) posts to a .txt file on your designated web server. There are some additional date format tweaks as well which will aid the data import process.
Or better you can swap out your Blogger template with a simpler one that takes the essentials and formats them in an import-friendly format. Which is the good news. The bad news is Blogger's official response:Thank you for your input regarding additional features for Blogger. We do not currently have this feature but may implement it in future versions of Blogger. We appreciate your input
which implies they don't want you to upgrade your blogging service.
Of the many free Blogging scripts available, I rate Wordpress as the best. It's easy to setup and equally easy to customize. And included in the script is a search engine. As well as options to manage links, configure and use categories, and more. The best way is, of course, to download a copy and check it out for yourself. Wordpress requires PHP with a MySQL database.
The next best tool is Blosxom; a CGI application that needs extensive customization before its works at the Wordpress (or Moveable Type) levels. But to effect this customization you need intermediate Perl programming skills. Still, as most web hosts do support CGI, this is a good beginning platform for your blog.
But if you can scare up a PHP host, do checkout Bigevilbrain's phpHost blogging tool. This exceedingly simple script uses plain text files to manage posts. The interface is quite basic, and additional static pages like "About This Blog" are displayed under Links mixed in with actual URL links. But it's a beginning and the text format means you can upgrade later to a more full-featured tool.
That's it for now. Stay Safe!
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